Whether you live on the East Coast and the wildfire smoke drifting from Canada is choking you, or you foolishly allowed someone to smoke a cigarette in your home, you’re here because you want to know how to eliminate the smell. There are a variety of tips out there promising to get smoky stinks out of your upholstery, carpet, and nostrils—but a lot of them are temporary. Here’s what will actually work, and what will only temporarily mask the smell.
These things provide temporary, incomplete odor removal (if they provide any at all):
Charcoal can absorb odors, per Nok-Out, but it doesn’t do much to tackle the smells at their source. Baking soda is the same, as it can temporarily pull a little odor out of the air, but it won’t work forever. It can be more effective as a cleaner at the source, which we’ll go over shortly. Coffee grounds are great for eliminating smells in an immediate way, which is why candle stores have a jar of them on hand for customers who want to browse different scent varieties. These are just temporary fixes, too, though.It can be beneficial to keep containers of charcoal, baking soda, or coffee grounds around if you want to temporarily mask a smell, especially if there’s no consistent smoke source. If there is one or the smell seeps deep into your fabrics, though, no quick hack is going to permanently remove the stench.
How to effectively remove smoke odor
You need to tackle the odor at the source. Even once the smoke has stopped coming from wherever it’s coming from, it has sunk into carpets, furniture, fabrics, drapes, and whatever else. Per Texas A&M University’s Texas Extension Disaster Education Network, you have to clean all your home’s surfaces. You can pick up products that can help you, but make sure you look for deodorizing products, not odor-masking ones. (No air fresheners.)
Steam your carpets and any other upholstery. You can try wiping down your furniture and walls with white vinegar and sprinkling some baking soda on furniture before you steam or otherwise clean it as you normally would. This is where those hack-y products do come in—but leaving them in bowls around the house isn’t going to do as much as actually scrubbing them into the affected materials.
Per Realtor.com, where getting smoke smells out of a house is straight-up a smart business move, you also need to air the space out. Don’t crank open a window if the smoke and stench are coming in from outside, but feel free if they’re not, or get an air purifier.
Don’t forget your walls, which are just porous enough to retain that stench. Vinegar is fine and well, but the Red Cross recommends using trisodium phosphate and water, especially if you’re also cleaning up soot. TSP works well for floors and other hard materials, too. (You can easily pick up TSP at a big box store or on Amazon.) If the odor persists, consider repainting your walls and using a sealant over them.
